8 ms·

Googlers Expose Sketchy SEO Company

73 points by rooshdi 16y ago

coderdude 16y ago
I think the real take-away from this is to just stay legit. Don't try to do anything shady because it will most likely come back to bite you in the ass. The guy is actually pretty dumb for not realizing they could figure out who he was while using a handle that contains his real name.
- daemin 16y ago
  I would hope that apart from staying legit, another take away from this be to know the market that you are in, know of some of the key people at those companies, or perhaps being able to find said information? From the article it seems that the bruben25 SEO guy didn't do any research as to who Matt was, where as Matt quickly found out quite a bit of (public) information on who the SEO guy was. Now who's the better Search expert?
  - coderdude 16y ago
    Indeed, everyone should learn who the key people are in their industry. It's almost unfathomable that bruben25 didn't know who Matt Cutts is, though. B Ruben seems to be on another plane of obliviousness. Everyone knows who Matt Cutts is. I think this speaks more to the fact that the guy really didn't do any legitimate SEO. People who are legitimate in SEO generally keep up with the trade publications, talk to people, and make connections.
    - joshu 16y ago
      Did you manage to read through the whole wall of text? Distinct impression of crazypants...
      - coderdude 16y ago
        If you're asking if I read the entire article, yes I did. I don't know if the guy (bruben25) is actually crazy, but he certainly doesn't come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer. Edit: I see what you're pointing to now (bruben25's wall of text in the Google Webmaster Central thread). I didn't actually read that but I'm checking it out now.
        daemin 16y ago
        I looked at that original thread, and oh boy is that a lot of text. Obviously someone really wanted to defend their position and thought a lot of text would help make their point.
  - gjm11 16y ago
    Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Matt Cutts is an expert in search. B D Ruben is an expert in being found. Hence, Matt Cutts was able to find B D Ruben. No reason to expect it to work the other way around. (For the avoidance of doubt: No, I am not serious. Yes, Ruben appears to be a dweeb. Yes, Matt Cutts is obviously very much smarter than he is.)
dholowiski 16y ago
I'm sure this gets said by thousands of geeks every day, but Matt Cutts is a cool guy. That was hilarious.
- Matt_Cutts 16y ago
  The funny (sad?) part is that I had a lot more material I could have used. The point was clear though, so no need to be mean.
  - michael_dorfman 16y ago
    My favorite line from the exchange: I also was not able to find Matt Cutts in the Google employee directory. Clearly the words of a true expert in Search...
- smiler 16y ago
  He will be even cooler if he pushes for the feature to allow you to customise your Google searches and have a user-defined blacklist of sites.
- eneveu 16y ago
  I loved how Matt's response was mocking shady SEO techniques where you keep repeating keywords over and over. He placed the company name / website 10 times in his reply! I don't know if this will have much effect on the SEO rankings, but it was very funny, and I wouldn't be surprised if the first Google result for "better placements" in a few day links to this story (all the social media attention will also help).
  - dholowiski 16y ago
    Good catch. The #1 result for "Better Placement" right now is the article this post links to!
lwat 16y ago
Googler's Exposé Of Sketchy SEO Company or Googlers Expose Sketchy SEO Company
- rooshdi 16y ago
  Oops, just noticed that typo. Too late to edit that title now though, but either of those two work.
to 16y ago
most boring read in a long time. i think the last jersey shore was more interesting.
lenni 16y ago
Why does this side load assets from twitter for every page scroll I do?
haberman 16y ago
bruben25's posts are remarkable in how they string together phrases that seem coherent in isolation, but when taken together are long, rambly, and impossible to follow. Skimming them, I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about half the time.
- infinity 16y ago
  Yes, it's almost like auto-generated text.
- josefresco 16y ago
  I would guess that maybe English is not their primary language? I would also imagine that they wrote each reply with their heart racing/eyes twitching as they realized the ship was going down at the hands of Google reps.
jacquesm 16y ago
For a second there I thought that google decided to sink Demand Media before the IPO.
leon_ 16y ago
Which "SEO companies" aren't sketchy?
- phpnode 16y ago
  I don't know if this is a snarky, rhetorical question, but there are many legitimate SEO companies out there. SEOMoz is a good example. A general rule is, if they guarantee certain rankings, avoid them, if they offer "directory submission" services, avoid them.
  - leon_ 16y ago
    As soon as they start talking about "link building" my spam sense tingles. The same for "social media optimization". So what is left? Glorified mod_rewrite hackery? /edit: That's not a flame. I'm just interested what non shady SEOs do. The last time I looked into SEO it was all about rearranging your HTML so the spider would get to the content fast. And to put nofollows on your links to get the juice flowing the way you wanted. But this wasn't that complex that it justified hiring an expensive SEO company. Sure, they all did that link building stuff too - but as noted above to me that's shady (it was mostly about spamming digg-like sites with top 10/5 articles).
    - kingofspain 16y ago
      I've started working with an SEO on a few things and I've seen a few things he does. mod_rewrite hackery is a part of it, as is validated HTML,/CSS meaningful titles, reducing load times as much as possible (basically doing well in all Yslow tests), accessibility stuff and other bits & pieces (like generating XML sitemaps, product feeds for Google product search etc etc). A lot of this should be covered by any half decent site but as you may not find surprising, most sites out there don't know or don't bother.
    - klbarry 16y ago
      Link building has all to do with making content that people find interesting enough to link to/talk about on social networks, and designing it to get links from certain types of sites with certain types of anchor text. As far as I know, Google is quite happy with that particular part of the SEO process, and it's firmly white hat.
jasonkester 16y ago
This is how I want to go out. In a giant long-winded incoherent unwinnable flame war against the best minds in my industry, hiding behind a flimsy mask of anonymity and dragging my business empire down further with every post until there's nothing left. Perfect. Beautiful. I'm just biding my time until the right person calls me out...

73 points by rooshdi 16y ago

I think the real take-away from this is to just stay legit. Don't try to do anything shady because it will most likely come back to bite you in the ass. The guy is actually pretty dumb for not realizing they could figure out who he was while using a handle that contains his real name.

daemin 16y ago
I would hope that apart from staying legit, another take away from this be to know the market that you are in, know of some of the key people at those companies, or perhaps being able to find said information? From the article it seems that the bruben25 SEO guy didn't do any research as to who Matt was, where as Matt quickly found out quite a bit of (public) information on who the SEO guy was. Now who's the better Search expert?
- coderdude 16y ago
  Indeed, everyone should learn who the key people are in their industry. It's almost unfathomable that bruben25 didn't know who Matt Cutts is, though. B Ruben seems to be on another plane of obliviousness. Everyone knows who Matt Cutts is. I think this speaks more to the fact that the guy really didn't do any legitimate SEO. People who are legitimate in SEO generally keep up with the trade publications, talk to people, and make connections.
  - joshu 16y ago
    Did you manage to read through the whole wall of text? Distinct impression of crazypants...
    - coderdude 16y ago
      If you're asking if I read the entire article, yes I did. I don't know if the guy (bruben25) is actually crazy, but he certainly doesn't come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer. Edit: I see what you're pointing to now (bruben25's wall of text in the Google Webmaster Central thread). I didn't actually read that but I'm checking it out now.
      - daemin 16y ago
        I looked at that original thread, and oh boy is that a lot of text. Obviously someone really wanted to defend their position and thought a lot of text would help make their point.
- gjm11 16y ago
  Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Matt Cutts is an expert in search. B D Ruben is an expert in being found. Hence, Matt Cutts was able to find B D Ruben. No reason to expect it to work the other way around. (For the avoidance of doubt: No, I am not serious. Yes, Ruben appears to be a dweeb. Yes, Matt Cutts is obviously very much smarter than he is.)

dholowiski 16y ago

I'm sure this gets said by thousands of geeks every day, but Matt Cutts is a cool guy. That was hilarious.

Matt_Cutts 16y ago
The funny (sad?) part is that I had a lot more material I could have used. The point was clear though, so no need to be mean.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  My favorite line from the exchange: I also was not able to find Matt Cutts in the Google employee directory. Clearly the words of a true expert in Search...
smiler 16y ago
He will be even cooler if he pushes for the feature to allow you to customise your Google searches and have a user-defined blacklist of sites.
eneveu 16y ago
I loved how Matt's response was mocking shady SEO techniques where you keep repeating keywords over and over. He placed the company name / website 10 times in his reply! I don't know if this will have much effect on the SEO rankings, but it was very funny, and I wouldn't be surprised if the first Google result for "better placements" in a few day links to this story (all the social media attention will also help).
- dholowiski 16y ago
  Good catch. The #1 result for "Better Placement" right now is the article this post links to!

lwat 16y ago

Googler's Exposé Of Sketchy SEO Company or Googlers Expose Sketchy SEO Company

rooshdi 16y ago
Oops, just noticed that typo. Too late to edit that title now though, but either of those two work.

to 16y ago

most boring read in a long time. i think the last jersey shore was more interesting.

lenni 16y ago

Why does this side load assets from twitter for every page scroll I do?

haberman 16y ago

bruben25's posts are remarkable in how they string together phrases that seem coherent in isolation, but when taken together are long, rambly, and impossible to follow. Skimming them, I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about half the time.

infinity 16y ago
Yes, it's almost like auto-generated text.
josefresco 16y ago
I would guess that maybe English is not their primary language? I would also imagine that they wrote each reply with their heart racing/eyes twitching as they realized the ship was going down at the hands of Google reps.

jacquesm 16y ago

For a second there I thought that google decided to sink Demand Media before the IPO.

leon_ 16y ago

Which "SEO companies" aren't sketchy?

phpnode 16y ago
I don't know if this is a snarky, rhetorical question, but there are many legitimate SEO companies out there. SEOMoz is a good example. A general rule is, if they guarantee certain rankings, avoid them, if they offer "directory submission" services, avoid them.
- leon_ 16y ago
  As soon as they start talking about "link building" my spam sense tingles. The same for "social media optimization". So what is left? Glorified mod_rewrite hackery? /edit: That's not a flame. I'm just interested what non shady SEOs do. The last time I looked into SEO it was all about rearranging your HTML so the spider would get to the content fast. And to put nofollows on your links to get the juice flowing the way you wanted. But this wasn't that complex that it justified hiring an expensive SEO company. Sure, they all did that link building stuff too - but as noted above to me that's shady (it was mostly about spamming digg-like sites with top 10/5 articles).
  - kingofspain 16y ago
    I've started working with an SEO on a few things and I've seen a few things he does. mod_rewrite hackery is a part of it, as is validated HTML,/CSS meaningful titles, reducing load times as much as possible (basically doing well in all Yslow tests), accessibility stuff and other bits & pieces (like generating XML sitemaps, product feeds for Google product search etc etc). A lot of this should be covered by any half decent site but as you may not find surprising, most sites out there don't know or don't bother.
  - klbarry 16y ago
    Link building has all to do with making content that people find interesting enough to link to/talk about on social networks, and designing it to get links from certain types of sites with certain types of anchor text. As far as I know, Google is quite happy with that particular part of the SEO process, and it's firmly white hat.

jasonkester 16y ago

This is how I want to go out. In a giant long-winded incoherent unwinnable flame war against the best minds in my industry, hiding behind a flimsy mask of anonymity and dragging my business empire down further with every post until there's nothing left. Perfect. Beautiful. I'm just biding my time until the right person calls me out...